Aircraft flies into high-rise in Tampa

Teenager pilots small plane into downtown tower

January 06, 2002|By From Tribune News Services.

TAMPA, Fla. — A small private plane piloted by a 15-year-old crashed into an office high-rise in the downtown area late Saturday afternoon after taking off from a nearby airport without clearance and then ignoring Coast Guard signals to land, officials said.

Capt. Bill Wade of the Tampa Fire Department said there was no word yet of casualties from the four-seat aircraft, but he said no one was hurt in the building or on the ground.

Wade said the plane hit the 20th floor of the Bank of America office tower. The weather was clear when the plane hit the building about 5 p.m.

While the incident aroused grim memories of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that involved hijacked jetliners being slammed into office buildings, Office of Homeland Security spokesman Gordon Johndroe said in Washington that, "at this time, we have no indications that this was a terrorist-related incident."

Pinellas County Sheriff Greg Tita identified the pilot as Charles Bishop of Palm Harbor, Fla. He added that the teenager was the only person on board the plane.

Tita declined to say whether Bishop was killed but, from the condition of the aircraft, it seemed unlikely he could have survived the collision.

Still, the FBI was sending agents to the scene, according to a law-enforcement official in Washington who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Wade said there was no sign of a major fire at the crash site and, about an hour after the crash, firefighters had reached the affected area of the high-rise.

The streets below were quickly cleared by police. Though the plane's wings and other parts of the aircraft had fallen to the ground, its tail section remained dangling from the building.

Television station WFLA said the single-engine Cessna aircraft was owned by National Aviation Holdings.

A government official in Washington said that Bishop, at age 15, was a year too young to qualify as a solo pilot.

Air traffic controllers at the St. Petersburg-Clearwater Airport notified the Coast Guard that the Cessna 172 had taken off without clearance, said Coast Guard Lt. j.g. Charlotte Pittman.

A Coast Guard helicopter intercepted the plane and tried to give the pilot visual signals to land at a small airport, but Bishop did not respond, Pittman said.

She said the plane was only a few yards from the helicopter when it was signaled to land. Pittman said she has no doubt the pilot understood what the Coast Guard helicopter was indicating.

Federal Aviation Authority spokesman Scott Brenneer said the plane was flown by "a student pilot who did not have permission to fly the aircraft."

Hijacked passenger planes were used to collapse the World Trade Center towers and attack the Pentagon in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. A fourth hijacked plane crashed in western Pennsylvania.

Some of the pilots in the hijackings had been trained at Florida flight schools.

Bank of America, based in Charlotte, N.C., is the third-largest U.S. bank. It employs about 143,000 people and serves about 30 million households in 20 states. Bank officials did not immediately return calls for comment Saturday.